Tag: Talgarth

Gilestone: It’s All About Water

On By JacIn Colonialism, Englandandwales47 Comments

Over three years ago, with ‘Gilestone: Thinking Outside The Box‘, I suggested that the ‘Welsh Government’s controversial £4.25m purchase of Gilestone farm is about the transfer of water.

Much of what follows may look, superficially, like a rehash of that earlier piece; if so, it’s because that’s unavoidable in bringing the story up to date.

But there is more evidence. Which convinces me I was right.

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THE BACKGROUND

We’ll start by looking at what I think are the major milestones in this saga, in the order they happened.

1/ The Thomas family, who owned Gilestone pre-2010, had problems with the (then) Brecon Beacons National Park. They felt hounded. It cost them a lot of money to fight officialdom, and resulted in them selling up in October 2010.

(A curious feature of the business was that the solicitor acting for the Park was a Julie James. Who, in May 2011, became the Labour Assembly Member for Swansea West.)

2/ Next, seemingly out of the blue, a buyer in the form of Charles Weston turned up. He bought Gilestone for £900,000 through his company Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, re-named CWW Farming Ltd in November 2019. (Though the title document I’ve linked to does not cover all the Gilestone land.)

(Sharpness, Bristol, Newport, and Cardiff, are the major ports on the upper Severn estuary.)

3/ In March 2018 Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) organised a trip to Wales for representatives of the Watershed Agricultural Council based in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. This is the body responsible for keeping the Big Apple’s water supply up to standard. This visit was reciprocated in October 2019, when a party from the Beacons visited the Catskills.

(Which meant DCWW was studying a model under which a rural catchment area supplied water to a metropolis some 100 miles away.)

4/ This link resulted in DCWW setting up the Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment (BBMC). Though apart from the change of name to Bannau Brycheiniog I can’t see much recent activity on the website. There’s been nothing on the Facebook page since July 2022 and the Twitter/X account has been closed.

Next, in May 2020, the Beacons Water Group CIC (BWG) was launched.

The Beacons Water Group was established under Welsh Water’s Bannau Brycheiniog Mega Catchment initiative (BBMC), our landscape-scale approach to safeguarding our drinking water sources now and for the future.

Among the founders we find Weston of Gilestone and his next-door neighbour across the River Usk. (Weston left BWG in October 2022.)

BWG definitely enjoys political support. As does DCWW, which seems to get a free pass from the ‘Welsh Government’ and ‘environmental’ groups when it comes to river pollution, with farmers copping all the blame. One director, Hugh Martineau, was an ‘advisor’ with Coleg Soros in Talgarth.

5/ In March 2022 the ‘Welsh Government’ bought Gilestone farm for £4.25m. The reason given was to allow the Green Man Festival to expand from its Glanusk Estate site.

OK, that’s enough background. Let’s try to put meat on the bones and get up to date with other developments and findings.

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FILLING IT OUT, RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

What I suggested back in October 2022 was that the key to understanding the purchase of Gilestone might lie in the proximity of, on the one side, the River Usk, and the other side, The Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal.

Even so, this in itself tells you little. For it to make sense we need to link this abundance of H2O in Wales to southern England running dry of the stuff.

And let’s remember that, in addition to the river and the canal, Gilestone is just a couple of kilometres from Llangorse Lake to the north east and the same distance from Talybont reservoir to the south west.

The reservoir already connects with the Usk very near to Gilestone. It would be relatively simple to connect the lake.

I explain this because taking water from Wales has long been a favoured option to meet the increasing shortages in southern England. Boris Johnson talked about it in 2011. Johnson’s name was invoked in August 2022 in renewed calls for a national water grid.

As Nation.Cymru put it, quoting the Daily Mail:

Senior Conservatives are floating the idea of a ‘Great Boris Canal’ named after the outgoing Prime Minister to transfer water from the north of Wales to the south of England.

Though this plan has water from Llyn Efyrnwy diverted into the river and then into the Severn just over the border. As this Guardian article from March 2023 explains.

The “Cotswold canals” mentioned must be the Thames and Severn Canal, currently being restored.

Alternatively, the water will be piped straight into the Severn. Then it will be abstracted lower down, either at Deerhurst, north east of Cheltenham, or near to Sharpness.

Which serves to remind us that Charles Weston bought Gilestone farm in the name of Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, based in Sharpness docks. Where the Gloucester and Sharpness canal begins, connecting with the Thames and Severn canal in Gloucester.

It seems like every which way we turn in the Gilestone saga we hit water.

Taking us further and further away from farming and music festivals.

While the plan to transfer water from Wales to southern England has been mooted for decades, one reason for increased urgency in recent years is the planned growth in the numbers of AI data centres.

But it’s not just London and the south of England affected, there are other areas that will need much more water. Such as Cambridge, where there are (somewhat vague) plans for a ‘Forest City‘ of one million people.

One of those behind the plan, while admitting that water from Wales is a serious option, fears we Welsh are a bit touchy about the subject. Us!

Maybe that’s why the talk is of using rivers and canals. Perhaps some people think we’ll be too stupid to notice.

Having mentioned AI data centres, it’s worth remembering we have them in Wales, too. Especially around Newport and Cardiff. With more planned. Let’s get back to Gilestone.

We’ve seen that the River Usk and the Monmouthshire and Breconshire canal flow over or close by the property. Both waterways then run in a southeasterly direction towards Newport and the Bristol Channel.

My original thinking was that water could be transferred in either direction, whichever best suited the purpose of the exercise at any given time. But the canal only runs to Cwmbran, and is now effectively banned from taking water from the river.

As this piece from the Brecon & Radnor Express last month explains:

Earlier this year, Natural Resources Wales imposed new restrictions on the canal’s long-standing abstraction licence from the River Usk. It means that during periods of low water, the canal is no longer permitted to draw water from the river – a supply it has relied on for more than a century.

This has affected those who rely on the canal for their livelihoods, largely in the tourism businesses. Which seems to have resulted in intervention by the ‘Welsh Government’ with what looks like compensation.

With £5m announced in July. And what appears to be further funding announced earlier this month.

It seems clear that the flow of water in the Usk is a priority, and must be safeguarded.

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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Earlier I said that Charles Weston of Sharpness & Severn Transport had turned up at Gilestone out of blue. Perhaps I made him sound like a wraith appearing from nowhere. Which would be misleading.

Because before buying Gilestone Weston had, in 2004, bought 182 acres at Tan-y-fedw, south of Sennybridge. This sits on Afon Crai, which runs into the reservoir a few kilometres south.

And as AI Overview says of the reservoir: ” . . . much of its water is diverted to the Swansea Valley, while the remainder flows down to meet the Usk”.

Four years later he bought 76 acres at Allt-fechan, a couple of kilometres north west of Brecon. This holding stands on Ysgir Fechan, which runs into Afon Ysgir, which runs a few more kilometres into . . . the Usk.

Having received its orders from London the ‘Welsh Government’ plays its loyal part in this scheme. We see politicos, DCWW, and Natural Resources Wales, all working towards the objective . . . without being able to say what they’re really up to.

With the ‘environmental’ lobby chipping in. Remember Gail Davies-Walsh, former employee of DCWW, now of front organisation Afonydd Cymru, which shields the water company from criticism by blaming farmers for all river pollution?

Re-acquaint yourself with Gail by scrolling down in this piece from three years ago. Read her contribution to this article from March this year.

In the very same building in Talgarth where Afonydd Cymru is based we find the cross-border Wye and Usk Foundation, with its staff of 34 and its considerable income. Roughly half the grant money comes from that generous old soul, “Other“.

Ah! sweet Talgarth. Home of that noted and venerable seat of learning – Coleg Soros.

∼

Finally . . . We know there’s a plan to take water from Llyn Efyrnwy, into the Severn, and then, via pipe and canal, to the Thames. I believe there’s a wider plan that includes the Usk, Wye, and other sources. And this may be where Gilestone fits.

It would be relatively simple to connect Usk and Wye to the plan shown above. It would then be a multi-source option less likely to draw attention and criticism. For as Severn Trent is keen to stress (my emphasis):

This will be using water that is currently taken from Vyrnwy and occasionally redistributed elsewhere.  No additional water will be taken from Wales.

This, “some from here, some from there” approach, with no valleys drowned, will avoid another Tryweryn.

And seeing as Usk and Wye are within Dŵr Cymru’s territory, it explains the Catskills connection, Mega Catchment and Beacons Water Group. Why else would DCWW study how a hilly rural area supplies water to a metropolis 100 miles away?

Another factor worth considering is flooding. The existing wind farms on hills above the Severn and its tributaries cause greater run-off of rainwater, increasing the risk of flooding. With more windfarms planned, this risk will only increase.

So taking water from the Severn could also serve a flood prevention purpose. Though this is unlikely to be admitted, and never linked to wind turbines.

The wider plan I’m suggesting would also explain the quasi-sacred status given to the Wye by writers like George Monbiot, and bodies such as the Wye & Usk Foundation and Afonydd Cymru. For no other river in Wales gets this attention.

Whatever the details, it’s clear that Wales is to supply water to southern England. Much of it from resources in Wales owned by Severn Trent of Coventry.

But Wales won’t get paid a penny.

Ain’t devolution wonderful!

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2025

Coleg Soros And Associates

On By JacIn Colonialism, Corruption, Environmentalism, Globalism, Labour Party, Welsh Government, Wind Turbines, World Economic Forum19 Comments

This wasn’t planned, but it’s too big and complicated for a tweet, and so I’m putting it out as a quickie. As the title suggests, it concerns Coleg Soros in Talgarth, otherwise known as Black Mountains College.

For those new to this blog, or regulars with short memories, I have written a few times about Coleg Soros, so just type the name in the search box to the right. This piece from June 2019 will explain why I’ve renamed Black Mountains College after that evil old bastard (scroll down).

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COLEG SOROS GROWS!

Over the years I’ve become aware of two Coleg Soros entities: the now dissolved Black Mountains College Ltd, and Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

But there was a third company I’d somehow overlooked. In my defence I’ll say that this other company wasn’t launched until just before Christmas 2022. It’s Black Mountains College Operations Ltd. Scroll down on the overview page and you’ll see that it’s devoted to education.

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It began life with a single £1 share held by director Ben Rawlence, who’s been involved with Coleg Soros from the off. But then things moved on apace.

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INTEREST FROM AFAR

In June 2023 there was a share issue with a total value of £4,480,000. A couple of weeks later, William John Lana became a director. In November 2023 the company produced a breakdown of shareholders. Here it is.

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Like me when I first saw it, you’re wondering about Rewilding Wealth Ltd. So here’s what I found. It’s registered with Companies House as an Overseas Entity. Located in that bastion of probity and openness, the British Virgin Islands.

But using a Hong Kong correspondence address.

When we seek the beneficial owner(s) we see named, Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay, of Hong Kong, and the Bermuda Trust Company Ltd based, as you’d expect, on the sun-drenched isles of the same name.

Trying to make sense of it I wondered who McAulay is. What I found interesting is the Kadoorie element of his name. Because the Kadoories were a family of Jewish merchants in Baghdad who moved to China. And became very, very rich.

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AND CLOSER TO HOME

William John Lana, who we met earlier, may be the UK representative of Rewilding Wealth Ltd (RWL). I’m guessing that because in the Articles of Association for Black Mountains College Operations Ltd (page 12), it says:

For so long as RWL holds any shares in issue from time to time, it shall be entitled to nominate, appoint and maintain in office one person as a director of the company and to remove (or remove and replace) such director from time to time.

So what do we know about William John Lana? Well, let’s start with his Linkedin page, which mentions a number of companies he’s involved with. Partly confirmed by this Companies House entry.

But no mention of the one run by him and his wife, Greenfibres Ltd. It’s one of those companies that charges Guardian readers over the odds for linen and suchlike so they can sleep easy at night knowing they’re superior to the common herd destroying the planet.

Though I did find Greenfibres listed separately.

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MAKING SENSE OF IT

I think the key here is Rewilding Wealth Ltd. For while there is a Caribbean connection, I believe the majority holding lies in Hong Kong, with Andrew James Kadoorie McAulay.

As I’ve told you, his mother is a member of the ultra-wealthy Kadoorie clan, and his father, Ronald James McAulay, is a Scottish-Hong Kong billionaire, now in his late 80s.

Apart from McAulay Jnr being chairman of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden, it’s difficult to know how he whiles away the hours, or how he makes his contribution to the family pile.

Hong Kong was handed over to the People’s Republic of China at midnight on July 1, 1997, and Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden was quick off the mark. For Wikipedia tells us, ‘Conservation work has been extended to Mainland China since 1998’.

‘Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!’ Click to open enlarged in separate tab

In fact, digging around, it became clear that McAulay works quite happily with communist China. It looks as if he and his family are ‘flexible’ in dealing with the comrades, and have been for some time.

An example might be him sitting on the board of the China Light and Power Company (CLP) from 1997 to 2000. Which coincides with his time as a director of UK-based Solar Century Holdings Ltd, now owned by Norwegian state-owned Statkraft.

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SOPHIE GETS IN ON THE ACT

Clearly, someone has plans that involve Wales, but will probably have little or no Welsh input. (Rather like Coleg Soros itself.) Other than the necessary permissions to go ahead. But why is whoever’s behind it all using a small education establishment in Powys?

To make sense of it, let me first make clear that Black Mountains College Operations Ltd is controlled by Black Mountains College Project Ltd.

Within days of William Lana becoming a director of the new creation, Sophie Joyce Howe joined the board of the parent company.

She is of course the former Future Generations Commissioner. Her Linkedin profile claims she’s now a ‘freelance’. Which may be true, but she’s not averse to picking up a few well-paid gigs on the side.

Because a good source told me Howe’s another of the many Labour insiders on the payroll of Scottish company Bute Energy, which wants to cover our beautiful country in wind turbines and pylons.

And then, when I checked the Charity Commission entry for Black Mountains College Project I could see that Sophie Howe is also a trustee of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She joined in July 2023.

And let’s not forget that in the extract I used from the Articles of Association of Black Mountains College Operations, and the reference to appointing a director, Howe might also fit the bill if the clause extends to the controlling company.

But if she is the designated RWL director, then who is Lana representing?

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WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Rewilding Wealth Ltd may do what it says on the tin, by which I mean it seeks investors for rewilding projects. And as the Guardian told us a few years back, there’s serious money to be made.

In which case, Coleg Soros will serve as the entry point, perhaps facilitator, for foreign investors buying up Welsh farmland. Something the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ fully supports, and which might explain Sophie Howe’s involvement.

Another possibility, is that Kadoorie-McAulay is fronting for the Chinese Communist Party, and they want their slice of the Welsh renewables cake. For in its blind acceptance of the Globalists’ climate scam the ‘Welsh Government’ has laid our country wide open to exploiters from around the world.

Neither corporate rewilders nor Chinese Communist party should be acceptable to any Welsh man or Welsh woman who cares about this little country of ours. It’s all we’ve got.

Something else that is unacceptable is the way Labour insiders benefit from cwtshing up to those exploiting Wales. Selling political influence for personal gain is exactly what Labour politicians accuse their Conservative counterparts of doing.

Deluding yourselves that taking the money is justified because you’re saving the planet is rank hypocrisy. Which is of course Labour’s stock-in-trade.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2024

The Alliance Against Livestock Farming

On By JacIn Corruption, Englandandwales, Greens, Public Funding, Third Sector, Welsh Government, Welsh Media43 Comments

This week’s piece about wildlife trusts and environmental groups complements what I put out last week about the assorted river charities.

For both seem to be funded to shield Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water) and others from criticism by blaming livestock farmers for all river pollution. Also, to pursue the so-called ‘Welsh Government’s Net Zero lunacy and, in so doing, serve the globalist agenda.

With a few twists.

Wildlife and environmental groups tend to contain more ‘zealots’, which results in hysteria, and a readiness to tell lies. Which in this context is often accompanied by a thinly-disguised contempt for Wales and Welsh identity.

One example might be the charity Wildlife Trusts Wales (WTW) choosing to dissolve itself, while the local trusts for which it served as the umbrella organisation joined England’s Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. You’ll learn more about this as you read on.

As I say, there will be similarities with last week’s piece, but also differences. And I promise a bit more in the way of polemic. Ol’ Jac gonna let rip!

It’s fairly big, so go make a mug of something before settling down to enjoy it.

♦

WHO’S WHO IN THE FLEECE JACKETS

Let’s start by looking at the organisational setup.

As I said in the intro, Wildlife Trusts Wales recently put itself out of business so that the five regional trusts – North, Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, South and West, Gwent – could become full members of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT).

Explained at the foot of page 1 in the 2021 WTW accounts.

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The clip below from the Charity Commission entry tells us that the RSWT now views Wales and England as a single unit, whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland are treated separately. Even the Isle of Man gets more respect than us.

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But then, when you surrender your separate identity this is what you can expect.

And yet, the pretence of an independent existence is maintained by a Wildlife Trusts Wales website. Where WTW describes itself as: ‘one of five Wildlife Trusts in Wales’ which, again, makes no sense. Yes, there are five, I just listed them, and they’re all area specific, so where and how does WTW fit in?

It’s all very confusing. Perhaps deliberately so.

At the foot of the WTW website home page we are given Companies House and Charity Commission numbers. The latter draws a blank because the charity was closed March 31, 2021. While the Companies House entry tells us that the company voluntarily dissolved earlier this year.

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So why hasn’t the information on the website been updated? If it’s claimed WTW still exists, then what form does that existence take?

And what happened to the money?

Well, the final accounts for the WTW (y/e 31.03.2021) seem to show, at the foot of page 19, that the cash left when the company folded was divvied up among four of the five trusts I mentioned earlier.

Brecknock received nowt because it had not long before merged with the South and West Wales Wildlife Trust, which for some reason was itself left out. (Why didn’t ‘Brecknock’ make the obvious merger, with Radnorshire? Or why not a Powys trust?)

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You’ll see that £234,320 went to the ‘All Wales Conservation Strategy’. Does anyone know what that is? I’ve tried Googling but nothing comes up. Do the funders know where their money’s going?

The more I thought about this wildlife trusts reconfiguration the stranger it appeared. I mean, just think about it.

Before devolution we had local wildlife trusts with Wildlife Trusts Wales serving as the umbrella body. Yet now, when wildlife trusts deal with Y Senedd, when there’s separate Welsh funding, different legislation, they do away with their national body in order to, effectively, become English wildlife trusts.

This move makes no sense on any rational or practical level. How then can it be explained? I really would like to know.

Whatever ethereal form Wildlife Trusts Wales now takes the wraith clearly retains the strength to use a Twitter account. Here’s a gem put out on Monday.

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To describe Wales as ‘one of the most nature depleted countries in the world’ is hysterical nonsense and an insult to us as a nation.

While suggesting that farming is to blame rather gives the game away.

The image used in the tweet comes from this source, linked with Denmark farm, near Lampeter, where we find another gang of alien envirogrifters. A farming source tells me the allegation made in the image may be libellous.

The Denmark Farm Conservation Centre has gone the way of so many outfits that appear on this blog – it was Dissolved earlier this year. With two outstanding charges.

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FILTHY LUCRE

We saw in last week’s piece that river charities saw a remarkable increase in official funding at the very time Minister for Rural Affairs Lesley Griffiths (and Gary) was formulating her draconian and ‘unworkable’ NVZ legislation.

Such propinquity!

Well, no. It’s explained by the fact that Lesley (and Gary) wanted a stream of pollution stories in order to justify that NVZ legislation.

Stories that were also music to the ears of Dŵr Cymru (Welsh Water) bosses, because it deflected attention from the water company’s pollution.

We see something very similar in wildlife trusts.

Let’s start with the North Wales Wildlife Trust. Where total income more than doubled between 2017 and 2021. The largest element of that increase is (in various forms) government funding, up from £180,440 in 2017 to £1,970,000 in 2021.

Plus assets of around £3m.

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A ten-fold increase in government funding will support a few beavers.

The picture at the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust shows a more modest but still healthy increase in funding. To which we must also add assets pushing £3m.

Moving south we come to the intriguing anomaly of the Radnorshire Wildlife Trust. Intriguing for in the old 13-county arrangement you will recall that Radnorshire was quite small in size and had the lowest population of all our counties.

But the local wildlife trust paints a different picture. Total income doubled between 2017 and 2021 and there are assets of over £2m. There were no assets in 2019.

The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales has seen income increase by 50% in the period we’re looking at, but government grants increased from £21,300 in 2017 to £748,050 in 2021. Then throw in assets of some £5m.

Finally, to Gwent. Where income has increased at a more modest rate apart from a huge blip in 2018 accounted for by Heritage Lottery funding for a project on the Gwent Levels. But with assets around the three million pound mark.

So everything looks just tickety-boo on the financial front for our English-registered wildlife trusts.

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BARE-FACED LIES

I am indebted to one of the few honest journalists left in Wales for drawing my attention to a disgraceful incident last November, at a hearing of the Senedd’s Economy, Trade and Rural Affairs Committee.

Rachel Sharp of the zombie-like Wildlife Trusts Wales and Wales Environmental Link (WEL) alleged that along with all the other evils livestock farmers are responsible for they also use growth hormones, which eventually end up in our streams and rivers.

The transcript is here (123) and the video here.

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The truth is that growth hormones have been banned in the UK since 1981. Welsh livestock farmers do not use growth hormones.

After protests from farming unions and Tory MS Sam Kurtz apologies were issued. But as we’ve come to expect from these envirofanatics it’s never an honest ‘I was wrong’. It’s always qualified, position shifting, hoping the original lie lingers.

But this time they’d gone too far, and it wasn’t just Rachel Sharp telling porkies. Also there representing Wales Environmental Link was Creighton Harvey, also a trustee of Afonydd Cymru Cyf.

Here’s how the Pembrokeshire Herald reported it.

‘The evidence of Ms Sharp’s fellow representative from Wales Environment Link was also riddled with errors.

Creighton Harvey told the Committee that agriculture was the largest polluter of Wales’s watercourses.

The largest polluters are water companies, industrial users, and domestic users’.

So who is Rachel Sharp?

Well, as we know, she’s a trustee of Wales Environmental Link. But this profile from the ‘Welsh Government’ website tells us a bit more. And it’s fascinating.

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To begin with, it keeps up the pretence of the defunct Wildlife Trusts of Wales. But concludes by informing us that Rachel Sharp is also ‘a group member of the Welsh Water Independent Environment Advisory Panel’.

So what’s that? Here’s a clue from the Dŵr Cymru website.

We’re told, ‘The Chair is Mari Arthur, Director of Cynal (sic) Cymru’. But Mari Arthur left Cynnal Cymru in July 2018, after just 4 months. Is this another site in need of updating?

Mari Arthur now runs Mari Arthur Marketing, but hasn’t yet registered it as a company. Among her clients we find Cynnal Cymru. Also, joined-at-the-hip ‘Welsh Government’ and Cardiff University.

Her other companies include Afallen LLP and Tetrimteas Cyf.

If the name Mari Arthur rings a bell it’s because she so badly damaged Plaid Cymru in Llanelli, a seat the party had been nurturing since the days of the great Carwyn James.

She was forced on the constituency party by her friends in both Plaid Cymru and Labour. For in the Corruption Bay circles in which Mari Arthur moves party labels mean little as long as you’re ‘on the right side of history’.

The Independent Environmental Advisory Panel is clearly a group that allows Dŵr Cymru and envirozealots to agree their narratives in the war on livestock farmers and draw attention away from Dŵr Cymru itself, the biggest culprit.

There should be no place in Welsh public life for Rachel Sharp of the mythical Wales Wildlife Trusts, the all too corporeal Wales Environmental Link, and the Dŵr Cymru claque in the laughably named Independent Environmental Advisory Panel.

I suspect Rachel Sharp’s mask slipped last November when she forgot where she was; because when she and others of her ilk usually talk with politicians and civil servants – and of course, Dŵr Cymru – they tend to reinforce each other’s self-serving prejudices about livestock farmers.

But she’ll survive. For she has powerful friends, among those who’ve been elected, and those we’ve never heard of.

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Another name that caught my eye among the Wales Environmental Link luminaries was Natalie Buttriss, whose Linkedin profile (here in pdf) tells us she’s ‘Director of Wales The Woodland Trust’. This outfit previously used the name Coed Cadw for its Welsh operations, but this pandering to the indigenes seems to have been dropped.

Native of Bristol Buttriss was in at the start of the Summit to Sea land grab. For which she appeared on this blog four years ago in The Welsh Clearances. Her contempt for farmers was made obvious in this radio interview with the BBC’s Farming Today.

I have always believed that Buttriss was so arrogant, so dismissive of the interests of livestock farmers, because she believed she had the full support of the ‘Welsh Government’.

For in that interview she suggests that subsidies would be withheld or cut to make farmers fall into line. She wouldn’t have said that unless certain Bay politicians had promised to play the heavies.

The ‘Welsh Government’s hand was not revealed because the opposition to Summit to Sea made backers like Rewilding Britain pull out and the whole thing seemed to fall apart.

Or maybe it’s still out there, lurking in the undergrowth, waiting to re-emerge.

As we know, climate alarmists have too much influence with the media, partly through having brainwashed two generations of schoolchildren and college students, and partly through funding – ever wondered why Bill Gates gives money to the BBC?

Or perhaps, more pertinently, why the BBC is allowed to accept his funding?

But the propagandising is not confined to the BBC.

∼

Last Friday ITV’s Wales at Six ran a piece about cooperation between the Rhug Estate and the Welsh Dee Trust. A relatively harmless little filler.

But the newsreader, Andrea Byrne, dropped into the report: “Rivers like the Wye and the Usk are virtually dead and no longer able to support an abundance of fish like trout and salmon and other wildlife“.

Bizarre, and completely untrue. But from where did ITV Wales get that lie?

 

Because if it’s true then somebody should tell Harry Legge-Bourke of the Glanusk estate; for he advertises, ‘fantastic fishing on 5 miles of double bank fishing on the River Usk offering day tickets for Trout and Salmon rods’.

No one disputes that these rivers could be healthier, but they’re far from ‘virtually dead’, as ITV Wales would have us believe.

And if these rivers are in decline, then whose fault is that? Because if the finger of guilt is being pointed in the wrong direction to protect the guilty party then things are unlikely to improve.

There is constant financial backing and other support for those who tell lies about livestock farmers from those who benefit from and capitalise on those lies.

I’m often inclined to believe in coincidences. But not this time. What I’m describing is too widespread, across too many sectors.

If it quacks like a duck, and it waddles like a duck . . . 

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CONCLUSION

The environmental / wildlife / Nature bodies in Wales are like exotic organisms in a Petri dish. Forever growing, dividing, re-forming, changing appearance and colour, and multiplying through the introduction of fresh viruses.

There are many reasons why there should be no further public funding for these groups. You’ve read some of those reasons here. But Sebastian and Claudia needn’t go without because there are plenty of funding streams they could tap into.

For example, and seeing as they’re promoting the agendas of the UN and WEF, one possibility must be the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Another option would be George Soros. Contact details can be had from Coleg Soros in Talgarth, where environmental and wildlife groups already have many contacts.

Bottom line, and last word . . .

It’s obscene that a country – especially our country – gives tens of millions of pounds every year for truth-averse zealots to enjoy sinecures fretting over toads and butterflies while our people die because ambulances don’t turn up.

♦ end ♦

© Royston Jones 2022


Green Man, Red Herring?

On By JacIn Colonialism, Colonisation of Wales, Corruption, Welsh Government38 Comments

When someone drew my attention to the Green Man festival being gifted a farm by the so-called ‘Welsh Government’ I thought to myself, “I’m sure I’ve written about those buggers recently”; but no, I was thinking of the Green Gathering.

There are just so many using the ‘Green’ label, desperately trying to look enviro-virtuous! Bullshit, most of the time.

For those who may not recall it, the Green Gathering featured last September in Invasion of the Enviroshysters (PG), scroll down to the relevant section.

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The more recent story I’m referring to appeared last Friday on the BBC Wales website. A strange piece in many ways. For a start, why would the ‘Welsh Government’ buy a farm and then hand it over to people running a music event?

As is so often the case in these investigations, one thing leads to another. And that’s what happened here.

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GILESTONE FARM

As you’ve seen from the link above, the story begins with, Gilestone farm, near Talybont-on-Usk. The property can be found on the map below, with the farm name highlighted in the centre.

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To understand what’s happening now, and the anger it’s causing, we need to step back a bit, some 17 years.

And let’s introduce Geraint John Thomas, whose family has farmed in the Talybont area for centuries, maybe a millennium. He owned Gilestone Farm.

I won’t go into too much detail, partly because I may be meeting up with Geraint and his wife Chris early next week. But enough has already emerged to put out what you’re about to read.

Which will make any Part 2 I produce a kind of prequel. (Just think Godfather.)

Another reason for doing it this way is that my digging has unearthed intriguing links that may help us understand what’s happened at Gilestone.

Anyway, let’s sketch in the background. The problems began with planning permission granted by the Brecon Beacons National Park planning department in 2005 for caravans and camping at Gilestone farm.

By 2007 it had become clear that the BBNP, or certain individuals, had screwed up rather badly. (Which might explain the record being scrubbed, for I could find nothing on the BBNP website relating to that planning case.)

This report from 2008 tells that the planning department was by then, effectively, in special measures.

By 2010 we are reading that a High Court judge had quashed the original planning consent and, following very expensive litigation, the owners of Gilestone Farm found themselves with little alternative but to sell up.

This report from September 2018 tells us that Geraint and Chris Thomas, with their 5 children, have started afresh near Aberaeron. And being the grafters they are, they’ve made a success of their new ventures.

Then, just a year ago, their story was updated by WalesOnline. They’re obviously prospering . . . which is not always popular in socialist Wales.

But then, last Friday, all the bad memories were brought back with the report I linked to earlier. Though what I found odd was that neither the ‘Welsh Government’ nor the Green Man was prepared to talk to the media, so who leaked the story?

After reading that report, Christine Thomas put out a piece on her Facebook page, from which I reproduce the extract below.

   “We had sheds burnt down, we were banned from local shops and pubs, the children were bullied every day in school- it was horrific
     All because we had planning for a caravan park, and the locals did not want valleys people there
     The welsh government were instrumental in what happened to us-

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HANDS ACROSS THE POND

The man who bought Gilestone Farm from Geraint and Chris Thomas was Charles William Weston, who made the purchase in the name of Sharpness and Severn Transport Ltd, which has been renamed – rather modestly – CWW Farming Ltd.

I had trouble figuring out exactly what Weston owned at Gilestone because the property seems to have been broken up into a number of different titles. There is even an instance of the same title number relating to different sections of the overall holding.

These are the titles I found, and here’s a pdf version with working links. (Click on the title number.)

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Weston now seems to have betaken himself in the general direction of the City of my Dreams; specifically, the area around Crai.

Though he maintains a couple of companies containing the “Gilestone” name, such as Gilestone Leisure Ltd, Incorporated 02.12.2014, and Gilestone Glamping Ltd (Inc 02.12.2019).

To keep himself busy, Weston has also joined the recently-formed Beacons Water Group CIC (BWG). An interesting outfit this, which you’ll be reading more about.

There are six directors. Four have surnames we’d expect to find in a Welsh farmers’ organisation, the other two are Weston, and Anthony Hugh Martineau. The latter lives on a farm and is also Head of Sustainability at Map of Ag.

Another member is Richard James Roderick, chairman of the Brecon and Radnor branch of the National Farmers Union (NFU).

The BWG  is generally described as a “farmer-led” group set up to guarantee water quality in the area. And who could argue with that? As ever, the truth is rather more complex. Let’s start with this extract from the BWG 2021 accounts.

We learn the inspiration for the Beacons Water Group came from Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water, following a visit made to the Catskills region of New York state. The Catskills form the northern end of the Appalachian mountain chain.

The ‘BBMC’ referred to is Brecon Beacons Mega Catchment. Click to open enlarged in separate tab.

The Catskills initiative is called the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC) and is controlled to some extent, and funded, by New York City – to which the area supplies water – and the US federal government.

Revealingly, perhaps, the internet address for WAC is nycwatershed.com.

Though on reading about the WAC, the question that formed in the old Jac noggin was, “How did Dŵr Cymru even learn about this initiative so far away?”

The panel above goes some way towards answering that question by mentioning two trans-Atlantic visits. The first was in March 2018, when a group from the WAC visited Wales. As we see from the Dŵr Cymru tweet below, retweeted by the WAC.

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Then, in October 2019, a contingent from Dŵr Cymru reciprocated with a visit to the Catskills. But I could find no mention of this on the WAC Twitter account.

UPDATE 23.06.2022: Here’s a report of the visit by Dŵr Cymru accompanied by some Powys farmers.

Though what you see below from around the time of the Dŵr Cymru visit may put us on the path to enlightenment.

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The Bard College mentioned in the tweet is a Woke-Left institution in New York State favoured and funded by George Soros. The Manipulative Magyar’s influence in Wales is often channelled through Black Mountains College in Talgarth.

That’s right! – just a few miles from Gilestone Farm.

In One Planet, Future Generations & George Soros (June 2019) I explained that there are clear connections between Soros and Black Mountains College.

BMC Chief Executive Ben Rawlence worked for Soros’s Open Society Foundations, also Human Rights Watch, a body that has seen much Soros funding.

BMC Trustee Dr William Herbert Newton Smith was, as the BMC website tells us: ” . . . for 20 years head of George Soros’s higher education programme, establishing over 20 universities around the world.”

These included the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. Until my mate, Vik, gave them the bum’s rush.

Among the BMC ‘advisors’, along with Sophie Howe, Jane Davidson, and other Labour deadbeats, we find “Hugh Martineau Sustainable Agriculture Consultant”.

Yup, the same Martineau we saw earlier at the “farmer-led” Beacons Water Group.

Martineau is clearly well in with the Corruption Bay establishment. Here we see him being promoted by the ‘Welsh Government’s Wales Rural Network. Though what a chilling phrase “farming newcomers” is. Just think about it.

Hugh Martineau is on the right, local NFU chairman, Richard Roderick, is on the left. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

If we were talking about young Welsh people from farming backgrounds they’d already know more than Martineau. Which means that the headline can only refer to those, almost certainly from outside of Wales, buying Welsh farms.

Or taking on Welsh farms someone else has bought for them?

The link between Black Mountains College, Bard College, and George Soros, was recently strengthened through the Open Society University Network (OSUN).

Soros unveiled OSUN at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2020. Read this article. This really is Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. We have arrived in 1984.

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If we turn to Black Mountains College most recent accounts (page 4, under ‘Operations’) we read: “BMC was inducted into the global Open Society University Network (OSUN), allowing us to offer our programmes to students from 50 institutions around the world”.

But no mention of Uncle George!

I suggest you read the latest accounts to help you grasp the links between BMC and other institutions, such as the Centre for Alternative Technology. And the funding from the ‘Welsh Government’, through the Arwain programme and other sources.

One organisation linked to BMC – and don’t fall off your chair in surprise! – is Dŵr Cymru / Welsh Water, which is sponsoring the Ecological Futures Camp in late August – early September. (Take a look at the other sponsors!)

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The accounts also mention (page 4) an anonymous gift of £50,000. Bloody hell! Should a small educational establishment in receipt of public funding be allowed to receive large, anonymous donations?

But this generosity is dwarfed by the gift from Jenny Mathilde Daneels Watt of Switzerland. Jenny splashed out £960,000 last year to buy Troed-yr-Harn, a 120-acre grassland farm and then, so we are told, she lets Black Mountains College have use of it for a peppercorn rent.

Isn’t that nice of her, boys and girls!

Here’s the title document for the farm (no plan available), and here’s the title document for an extra little piece she bought (with plan).

So another Welsh farm is lost to the nation.

The question you’re all asking is, “Who the hell is Jenny Mathilde Daneels Watt of Switzerland and why would she be so generous to Black Mountains College?”

I’m asking the same question. Answers on a postcard, please!

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WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

Why would the self-styled ‘Welsh Government’ pay £4.25m for a farm it seems unsure what to do with, and then say it will be rented or leased to an organisation that has yet to make a comment, and has presented no business plan?

Part of the answer is, in a word, control.

Understand that we are dealing here with the socialist mindset that wants to control Wales and almost every aspect of Welsh life. If this can’t be done openly and directly, then it will be done surreptitiously, through proxies.

This is how the Labour Party has operated in Wales for a century. It explains the corruption, the cronyism and, regrettably, Wales’ poverty relative to other countries.

Why should farming, or the land, be treated any differently?

But before explaining what I think is behind the purchase of Gilestone Farm take a few minutes to enjoy Vaughan Gething, Minister for Economy (‘economy’!), flim-flam his way through questions in the Senedd on Wednesday.

Also understand that the Labour Party is ideologically and emotionally hostile to farmers and landowners. I could bore you with an explanation that takes us from the Inclosure Act (1773) via the Tolpuddle Martyrs (1834) to Kinder Scout (1932), but I’ll spare you.

Let’s now focus on the sale of Gilestone Farm.

I can’t be sure how and by whom the trans-Atlantic link was established, but at some point the idea that the mayor of New York City can influence farmers many miles away in the Catskills became seen as a good idea, to be replicated in Wales.

Which explains why the Beacons Water Group CIC was set up soon after the link was established between our own water supplier and the area supplying NYC.

Among the directors of BWG we found Richard Roderick, the local NFU branch chairman. Interestingly, Roderick farms directly across the Usk from Gilestone Farm.

Another BMC director is Alun Thomas, who farms within waving distance over Llangorse lake of Hugh Martineau.

Making the Beacons Water Group a cosy little gang. What’s more, there are plans to extend the idea, thanks to Cardiff University, which often seems to be joined at the hip with the ‘Welsh Government’.

The link in the previous paragraph takes you to a page headed: “Environmental resilience for water in rural Wales”. We read of, “Creative partner collaboration with Mrs Penelope Turnbull”.

Penelope Turnbull designs the interiors of cruise ships! She’s also been a window-dresser for Harrods!

How the fuck did she get this gig!

What does she know about farming? Or water quality? Come to that, why does a group set up to improve water quality on Welsh farms need a “Creative partner”?

Has the world gone mad, or is it just Wales? This could drive me to drink!

End of digression-rant.

Those belonging to the BWG are viewed as ‘good’ farmers, environmentally responsible and therefore to be favoured by politicians and their minions.

‘Good farmers’ will promote the globalist agenda that seeks to destroy livestock farming and have us eat gunge made in a factory owned by the increasingly weird, if not sinister, Bill Gates.

This couples with a change of tack from the ‘Welsh Government’.

For it has become clear, even to the blinkered and insensitive denizens of Corruption Bay, that hedge funds and City investors buying up Welsh farmland for various forms of greenwash does not go down well with the Welsh public.

Far better for the ‘Welsh Government’ to buy farmland and hand it over to favoured individuals and groups. Or it may be Dŵr Cymru doing the buying, or Natural Resources Wales. 

Here’s a recent example of such a purchase.

Without the trans-Atlantic link facilitated by Soros-backed institutions, we would not have seen the creation of the Beacons Water Group, and without the BWG the ‘Welsh Government’ would not have bought Gilestone Farm from Charles Weston.

The real story here may be the adoption and adaptation of a US arrangement that will be used by the ‘Welsh Government’ to reward those farmers who follow the globalist agenda while isolating those with principles.

Pour encourager les autres.

A bit crude, maybe incomplete, but this is how I see the general flow of influence or power in the subject you’ve reading about. Click to open enlarged in separate tab

The Green Man? Even if this outfit is taking over Gilestone, it’s just a distraction.

♦ end ♦

 

© Royston Jones 2022